Students protests in Sopore, Srinagar against attacks on Kashmiris outside valley. Screenshot from Youtube Video by Kashmir Despatch.

Amid multiple protests across India over a recent terrorist attack in Srinagar's Pulwama village that killed over 40 soldiers, hundreds of Kashmiri students and businesses facing attacks from right-wing groups returned to the valley from a number of other Indian cities. Numerous social media posts highlighted the terror students faced across the country including in Dehradun, Punjab, Jammu, and elsewhere as anti-Pakistan hysteria gripped the South Asian nation.

Javaid Ahmad Khan from Kashmir was abused, heckled & brutally attacked by a mob in Kolkata. Seeds of hate sown by Indian media are sprouting now. Shameful Society.#PulwamaAttackpic.twitter.com/h5WY5u3LY6

The backlash, stemming from last week's terror attack by a suicide bomber who used a car-bomb to kill Indian military soldiers near Srinagar on 14th of February 2019, has triggered a spate of fake news hoaxes and anti-Kashmiri propaganda which has led to the persecution of citizens from Indian-administered Kashmir.

As per a report from Free Press Kashmir, on 14th February, Kashmiris were attacked in Jammu's Janipur area. A government official hailing from Kashmir blamed police officials for lack of empathy:

“At 9 o clock in the morning, their shift changed. At 9.15 am, we were attacked from all the sides. A mob of thousands of Jammu locals came, damaged our vehicles and even injured us. We begged the police. We even touched their feet asking them to save us. But, theywere running away from us. The kids and women with us were wailing and it didn’t melt their heart.”

The Indian government claims and numerous reports state that the terrorist attack was carried out by local militant Adil Ahmad from a terrorist group, Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM), which India also claims receives sanctuary in Pakistan. Indian political outfits and Prime Minister Narendra Modi who belongs to the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) promised to isolate Pakistan internationally for supporting the militant groups. But, in a rebuttal, Pakistan Prime Minister Imran Khan denied these claims and warned his neighbor that the country would respond if attacked — acts that could lead to an all-out war between the nuclear-armed rivals.

Meanwhile, the governor of the northeastern state of Meghalaya, Tathagata Roy, took to Twitter and asked people to refrain from visiting Kashmir and ‘boycott everything Kashmiri’ thereby fanning the flames of anti-Kashmir sentiment.

An appeal from a retired colonel of the Indian Army: Don’t visit Kashmir,don’t go to Amarnath for the next 2 years. Don’t buy articles from Kashmir emporia or Kashmiri tradesman who come every winter. Boycott everything Kashmiri.I am inclined to agree

Lawyers and experts questioned this tweet as multiple journalists and activists have previously punished under India's sedition law, but this tweet went unabated and without any action from the government:

Governor of Meghalaya has committed sedition

His appeal to boycott Kashmir is most extreme form of Tukde Tukde slogan

Kashmiris attacked, Indians protest and grieve:

The attack, which made headlines amidst Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman‘s visit to India following a meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan has polarized social media with an influx of fake news videos, vengeful posts against Kashmiris and opened a cauldron of political hate speech ahead of India's general elections scheduled in spring.

Kashmiri shawl trader Javid Ahmad Khan, 27, mercilessly beaten up by an abusive mob in Taherpur area of Nadia district in West Bengal last night. Mob was forcing him to chant ‘Vande Mataram’ while abusing him. @MamataOfficial#kashmirpic.twitter.com/xSTRUvRMiC

India and Pakistan have fought three times over Kashmir, highlighting the region's complex history and its struggle for sovereignty and independence that was promised with a referendum after the birth of India and Pakistan in 1947. Instead, both countries divided Kashmir and multiple human rights cases of abuse, sexual assault and enforced disappearances, have marred the region while citizens seek a ‘referendum’ as outlined by this detailed Global Voices report.

Priya Dutt, a politician from Mumbai expressed anguish over reports of violence against Kashmiris:

News of kashmiri students being attacked by mobs in Dehradun is saddened me , Kashmir is our state and the Kashmiri people our brethren, this is not the time to be divided and fight our own, that is what they want, we must stand as one and protect eachother. India is ONE

Those attacking or abusing #Kashmiris citizens in heartland are NOT being patriotic. They are in fact the ones being anti national. Because they are playing into what terrorists want – to polarize, communalize and divide . Focus on the adversary. STOP THIS #KashmirTerrorAttack

Kashmiri activist Shehla Rashid has been using Twitter to aid students who were harassed by college officials or goons to evacuate and travel back safely to their home region. She also highlighted how right-wing trolls were making the process more difficult.

I'm getting DMs from BJP men with obviously fake appeals: "Mam, Brahmans are attacking us Muslims. Please help.", "Mam, we are being attacked by extremist Hindus."

Just watched some horrible videos containing violence, threats, abuse and vandalism against Kashmiris in Haryana, Bihar, Jammu and elsewhere. I have decided against sharing the video footage. In one such video a Kashmiri mela is attacked by a group of goons in Bihar.

Meanwhile, fake images and doctored videos were shared on social media after the incident, fanning flames of hatred. A Google employee was shocked at the scale of fake news while Facebook too stepped in to counter the surge.

I've never seen anything like this before – the scale of fake content circulating on one story https://t.co/Ce2Yh7IdVW

India's Central Reserve Police Force had to step in and ask Indians to stop spreading fake news on social media:

ADVISORY: It has been noticed that on social media some miscreants are trying to circulate fake pictures of body parts of our Martyrs to invoke hatred while we stand united. Please DO NOT circulate/share/like such photographs or posts. Report such content at webpro@crpf.gov.in

In a Tweet, Faesal sought help to safeguard Kashmiris scattered across India with lack of legal support:

Are there any HR lawyers who can help students detained in Solan HP, Dehradun, Bangalore? Please inbox. Kashmiri students have the right to legal aid.Constitution gives it to them.And no one in this country can deny this right to them. Matter urgent.

It is time to mourn and grieve but this tragedy also calls for introspection. The last couple of years our national security has been reduced to using our armed forces for political propaganda and pre-election rhetoric. Our country needs a policy not ministers declaring josh.

On Tuesday, Indian agencies reported that they killed JeM commander Abdul Ghazi, the alleged mastermind of the attack. But the operations also killed more soldiers, police officers and civilians as Kashmir struggles to return to normalcy.

A sculpture of Mahatma Gandhi, the father of the nation for India. Image from Flickr by NewTown Grafitti. CC BY 2.0

Amid high-pitched campaigning for India's upcoming general elections, the leader of a Hindu fringe group shot an effigy of the country's most prominent leader, Mahatma Gandhi, and a subsequent video of the incident went viral, causing outrage across the country.

Eventually, Indian police officials arrested Pooja Pandey, the leader of Hindu Mahasabha which had organized the January 30th event to celebrate the 71st anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi's assassination by Nathuram Godse.

In the video, a saffron saree-clad Pandey surrounded by other right-wing group members can be seen firing an air pistol at Gandhi's effigy in celebration. In India, multiple right-wing groups praise Godse for having killed Mahatma Gandhi, calling the former ‘patriotic and nationalist’ and the latter ‘too moderate’.

The action drew widespread criticism from Indian National Congress headed by Party President Rahul Gandhi, with multiple state-wide agitations and many activists joining the fray. Protesters are calling the act ‘dangerous’ (despite being symbolic in nature) against the independence leader. Police officials who had been deployed finally arrested Pandey and her husband, who is seen taking part in the video footage. Numerous arrests subsequently followed after the high-profile event.

Gandhi, despite being a revered leader in post-independent India, also starkly divides various political groups. Recently, a statue of Gandhi was removed from a university in Ghana owing to his apparent racist comments against African communities.

Despite Gandhi's globally revered image as the founder of the non-violent movement against the British Empire and India's subsequent Independence, Hindu hardliners accuse the leader of betraying the community by being ‘pro-Muslim’ and supporting India's partition and the birth of Pakistan. Nathuram Godse fatally shot Gandhi on 30 January 1948 and was a member of multiple right-wing groups including the Hindu Mahasabha.

Those of you who are shocked at the Hindu maha sabha freaks shooting at Gandhi's effigy -

This is their politics. Right from the lowliest troll on Twitter to Modi himself. Each and every sanghi is a fan of Godse and glad that he murdered Gandhiji pic.twitter.com/2tNWNOXXSV

‘Not the first instance’

This is not the first time right-wing groups have publically revered Gandhi's killer. In 2015, the right-wing group Akhil Bharatiya Hindu Mahasabha announced plans to install statues of Godse across six districts — leading to protests across India.

On social media, netizens protested against the latest incident and its implications against the revered leader known globally for peace:

Mohammad Sajjad wrote on Twitter:

Aj Tak TV, in May 2018, had run 5 hours long debate on Jinnah portrait in AMU 1938.Not a single hour debate on Aligarh Hindu Mahasabha shooting Gandhi effigy on January 30, 2019.Sharm tum ko magar nahin aati

Last year, numerous TV news channels had conducted debates on a portrait of Jinnah at Aligarh Muslim University. These were endless debates stretching for days. The issue was kept alive. How many of those channels debated the shooting of the Gandhi's effigy by Hindu Mahasabha?

An advocate of non-violence, Gandhi ji had created many enemies when he was occupied in teaching the world the power of ahimsa. While he had the three-wise-monkeys that guided us all to not to see evil, not to hear evil, and not to speak evil, people today are doing exactly the contrary.

Recently, an Indian Parliamentary committee summoned Twitter to appear before a panel for apparently developing an anti-right-wing bias, which was rebuffed by Twitter representatives. Indian right-wing groups are seeking to normalize Hindutva form of nationalism and alter India's secular nature established by the constitution. And Indian elections across 29 states will only intensify the polarisation.

]]>https://globalvoices.org/2019/02/12/as-indias-elections-draw-near-right-wing-leader-is-arrested-for-shooting-mahatma-gandhis-effigy/feed/0India's Sabarimala row: How women fought against religious patriarchy for the right to prayhttps://globalvoices.org/2019/01/18/indias-sabarimala-row-how-women-fought-against-religious-patriarchy-for-the-right-to-pray/
https://globalvoices.org/2019/01/18/indias-sabarimala-row-how-women-fought-against-religious-patriarchy-for-the-right-to-pray/#respondFri, 18 Jan 2019 02:03:50 +0000https://globalvoices.org/?p=665668

Ayyappa Temple, Sabarimala

In India's southern state of Kerala, a July 2018 decision taken by the country's Supreme Court allowing women to enter and pray at an iconic temple is creating controversy.

The Sabarimala temple, which honours the Hindu celibate deity Lord Ayappa, is located on a hilltop in Kerala and women of menstruating age have been historically barred from entering the religious shrine because of their alleged ‘impurity‘ — a widespread belief in the Indian subcontinent.

The Supreme Court verdict, seen as groundbreaking by activists, allows women between the ages of 10 to 50 years to enter the premises of Sabarimala temple. However, it created a political firestorm as India's ruling right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) supporters clashed with Kerala's state government over the ruling.

The historic verdict and the overruling of the ban have led to a series of controversies. Politically-aligned groups and religious zealots protested against women entering the religious premises. Hundreds of Brahmin men and women also joined protests.

Kanaka Durga and Bindu Ammini, two women who made history by becoming the first in centuries to enter a hill temple in southern India, are in hiding after threats by hardline Hindu groups. Read more: https://t.co/oyCZ9ou1Yv Sivaram V pic.twitter.com/uiO0Xkie3m

One of the women, Kanaka Durga, who entered #Sabarimala, is hospitalised after she was allegedly attacked by her mother-in-law on her head. Incident happened early today morning, as she returned home, say sources close to her. Stable, referred for tests. @ndtv

India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi, while bringing political ideologies to the forefront, attacked Kerala's state government drawing criticism from activists.

PM in Kerala: The conduct of Kerala LDF govt on Sabarimala issue will go down in history as one of the most shameful behaviour by any party & govt. We knew that communists do not respect Indian history, culture and spirituality but nobody imagined that they will have such hatred. pic.twitter.com/rlQtRbVyMI

many centuries, the voices of women are being heard, a shrine that bars women of menstruating age, seems dysfunctional to all of us. The question arises, how can this even be an issue today – after all these years of battling for liberty? This is a vital and important question

Fight for the right

Amid political protests supported by the ruling party defending the ‘sanctity of the temple’, many organisations championing women's rights and activists have been attempting to enter the temple. Protests from opposition groups have resulted in violence and arson, while police authorities have stepped in to send back female devotees or safeguard them while entering the venue.

Women entering Sabarimala are the “most sinful”? What are we prime minister?

It is all very well to say that religions must adhere to the normal rules of liberal democracy, but the truth is they don’t. Gender equality is a vital principle in civic society and in political democracy, but it is by no means universally observed in the religious world. Muslim mosques don’t allow men and women to pray together in the same space. The Catholic Church does not permit female priests. Some Shinto monasteries are off-limits to women altogether. Eight Hindu temples in India do not allow men to enter during specified periods, and the Kumari Amman temple situated in Kanyakumari does not permit them at all. The law does not interfere in such matters. But in Sabarimala, it has chosen to.

The Sabarimala controversy has resulted in a conflicting battle of viewpoints. The ruling BJP, affiliated with Hindu volunteer organization Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), has strongly taken an anti-state government stance against its leftist policies which the right-wing central government wants to dismantle to win a turf war in Kerala ahead of general elections.

The Prime Minister's Office India tweeted:

Every Temple has their own beliefs.

There are temples where men are not allowed.

We should read minutely what the Respected Lady Judge said on the Sabarimala case: PM @narendramodi

Terror Apologia has reached a sickening height at The Telegraph. What Indian military does in Kashmir is counter-offensive against the terrorists but don't let your anti-national agenda stop you from equating them with #Sabrimala devotees pic.twitter.com/oez30ZWxxW

Police arrest 3 women enroute to Vavar Mosque in Kerala. Same state police that smuggled women anarchists inside #Sabrimala on orders of CM @vijayanpinarayi are now alleging that communal tension was being created. Different communities, different rules?https://t.co/DHLb4r9wW7

The feminist issue combined with political protests stood at the centre stage of India's struggle for gender justice as the argument of ‘impious’ woman has been used at mosques, temples and other religious celebrations in the South Asian sub-continent. But women have dared to fight in courts and remained triumphant.

#Sabarimala stains India's image on women's rights. No point celebrating Indira Gandhi or the cool quotient of a woman Defence minister if female blood is still a blot. My take in @washingtonpost. Read, share and tell me how much you disagree :-) https://t.co/uix8NjYVqG

God has created men and women to compliment each other. God doesn't discriminate but men do. Traditions should be respected but such concepts such as ‘impure women’ should be discouraged. Is there any parameter to judge men who visit the holy shrine? #Sabrimala

This entire chain of protests and events have set an example for women to now have equal rights as that of men. After Sabarimala, the recent High Court verdict provides women with legal access to the Agasthyakoodam peak, an 1868 meter high peak situated in Thiruvananthapuram district in the state of Kerala.

Following the second-longest hearing in the history of the Indian judiciary, the five-judge bench delivered a 1,448 page judgment more than seven years after the first legal challenge was issued against the scheme.

First read of the majority #AadharVerdict is scary. The end of mandatory linking to bank accounts & mobile phones, sure. But no remedy for possible wilful exclusions from welfare. Worse, the "surveillance state" issue is only addressed by saying "make a stronger law against it".

The system was also cited in an earlier constitutional challenge on privacy grounds. In July 2017, a nine-judge constitution bench of the Supreme Court unanimously upheld the right to privacy of Indian citizens, but the ruling did not implicate Aadhaar.

Controversies around Aadhaar

First launched in 2009, the Aadhaar system gives each person a unique ID number associated with multiple pieces of that person’s demographic and biometric information and stores it in a centralized database. In theory, it helps people authenticate their identity so that they may access a host of social and federal services.

Another shocking example of Aadhaar's failures came in 2017, with the starvation death of an 11-year-old girl who was denied her legally entitled food subsidies for the lack of the Aadhaar number. The case revealed that numerous ration shops were denying citizens their food subsidies, in an attempt to comply with the Aadhaar system.

Aadhaar has led to large scale exclusion of the poorest and most marginalised from state welfare programs. 11 yr old Santoshi died of starvation in Jharkhand exactly one year ago when her ration was stopped because her ration card was not linked to #Aadhaar. 4/4 #BhookhKiBaatpic.twitter.com/CiXuUXnLjc

In the ruling, the Supreme Court upheld sections of the Aadhaar Act of 2016 that allow biometric authentication to be used for government subsidies and welfare schemes. But the judgment removes some of the previously implicit requirements of the system, stating that “no one can be denied benefits for want of an Aadhaar card.”

The court also ruled to limit the use of Aadhaar by private banks and telecom providers, but did not retroactively punish private companies for violating the Act, including collecting citizen's data in the absence of legislation between 2009 and 2016.

While the judgment has been debated upon by experts, political groups and citizens alike regarding the individual privacy and linkages to financial inclusion, there exists a confusion about the verdict.

The Supreme Court had held that allowing the private sector to access biometric and demographic information was tantamount to enabling their commercial exploitation of this information. So, the court ruled, that portion of Section 57 that enables bodies corporate and individuals to seek authentication, was unconstitutional. There is considerable confusion as to what this statement really means. Does it imply that no private entities whatsoever can use the authentication infrastructure? If so, how does that interpretation square with the rest of the judgment that unequivocally upholds the use of Aadhaar for the purposes of dispensing subsidies and other government benefits?

A report in Business Standard highlights how companies such as India's Reliance Jio acquired customers due to the e-KYC module aided by Aadhaar and the future recourse:

“Though the verdict is not affecting us, we believe that this will be a regressive move for FinTech companies as they will eventually move to the traditional mode of verifying individuals and thereby the turnaround time for processing the loan will increase to a considerable extent,” said Bhavin Patel, co-founder and CEO of LenDenClub, a peer-to-peer lender.

An editorial in The Hindu explains how the recent judgment restores the Aadhaar bill to its original form, by eliminating loopholes in the public distribution system for society's poorest segments:

In upholding the constitutional validity of Aadhaar and clarifying areas in which it cannot be made mandatory, the Supreme Court has restored the original intent of the programme: to plug leakages in subsidy schemes and to have better targeting of welfare benefits. Over the years, Aadhaar came to mean much more than this in the lives of ordinary people, acquiring the shape of a basic identity document that was required to access more and more services, such as birth and death certificates, SIM cards, school admissions, property registrations and vehicle purchases.

#AadhaarVerdict: The Good, the Bad and the Ugly

Over the next few years, many legal scholars and social scientists are likely to pore over this significant judgment for its far-reaching impact on civil liberties and socio-economic issues.

The majority judgment struck down sections of the legislation that allowed the use of Aadhaar by private companies and also curtailed its use by the state under arbitrary “national security exceptions”. However, in spite of agreeing that profiling undermines civil liberties and surveillance is unconstitutional, the judges reach the conclusion that neither is possible in the Aadhaar system.

Aadhaar was always meant to be a mechanism by which subsidies and other welfare services of the government could be transferred to the people more easily. It was not intended to be a socio-economic right in itself. However, judicial approval for the scheme cripples individual privacy for perceived common good. In spite of acknowledging its flaws, the judges don't find the reasons adequate to declare the scheme unconstitutional.

While four out of the five judges upheld the constitutionality of the Aadhaar project, Justice Chandrachud's lone dissent raised important concerns.

He argued that the scheme is a “fraud on the constitution” and “wholly illegal”:

Identity is necessarily a plural concept. The Constitution also recognises a multitude of identities through the plethora of rights that it safeguards….Technology deployed in the Aadhaar scheme reduces different constitutional identities into a single identity of a 12-digit number and infringes the right of an individual to identify herself/himself through a chosen means.

While the dissenting judge's voice is not law, it opens the possibility of future challenges to the judgment.

After a spate of more than 20 mob lynchings driven by rumors spread on social media, the Indian government on July 20 threatened to punish WhatsApp for its inability to control fake news.

India's Ministry of Information and Technology issued an official statement describing WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, as an “abettor” in these crimes.

Information and Technology Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad chided WhatsApp and told a news daily: “They cannot evade responsibly and accountability for the messages, particularly those which are leading to killings.”

This may be a first step towards the Indian government taking legal action against the Silicon Valley company. But would legal action against Facebook actually help put an end to the killings?

Many Indians say that party politics and political manipulation, when combined with a technology like WhatsApp, are the real source of the problem. Sufyan Sadiq summarized the dynamics on Facebook:

WhatsApp is a big black hole of fake news in India that's used by the mischief mongering right-wing groups more often associated with BJP that ends up in someone's killing carried out by a lynch mob. This app is still evolving as a principal KillerApp in India…

Thus far, WhatsApp has responded to criticism by purchasing full-page advertisements in Indian newspapers offering readers ways to spot fake news. The platform has also placed new limits on forwarding of messages and introduced a label for messages that are forwarded, in an apparent effort to signal to users that a message may not have been written by its sender.

Some Indians appreciated the forwarding measure, while others think WhatsApp could do much more. But many are asking why the government hasn't taken more responsibility for the lynchings, which represent a serious threat to public safety.

India's WhatsApp lynch mob crisis

Lynch mobs formed on social media have claimed the lives of at least 34 people in India since 2014. Here are cases documented thus far in July 2018:

July 1: A spate of doctored videos spread on WhatsApp led to the mob lynching of five men in Maharashtra state, who were wrongly targeted for being kidnappers. The lynch mob subsequently threatened to set fire to police officers in an effort to confirm the victims’ deaths.

July 2: Four men were attacked in Maharashtra's Malegaon district as rumors spread about a child abducting nexus. A timely intervention from officials saved their lives.

July 8: Nilotpal Das and Abhijeet Nath were lynched by a mob in Northeast India's Assam on June 8, 2018, over viral rumors spread via Facebook, WhatsApp and eventually word-of-the-mouth.

July 13: A mob of 200 attacked five friends, wrongly believing they were child kidnappers, in the southern state of Karnataka. The mob killed Mohammad Azam, a UK-educated IT professional and seriously injured two others. The mob also attacked police officials who sought to intervene.

July 21: Rakbar Khan, who was wrongly suspected of illegally transporting cows, was killed by a mob in Rajasthan that beat him with sticks.

July 25: Four men were assaulted by a mob in India's most populous state, Uttar Pradesh for ferrying a bovine carcass. Police intervention spared their lives.

It is difficult to determine precisely how many people have been victims of mob violence. A Wikipedia chronicle of WhatsApp-related mob violence produces 56 results on this page. Independent data journalism website IndiaSpend claims that there have been 89 incidents of lynching since 2014, affecting 290 victims and killing 34. Minority Muslims, who account for 14 percent of India's population, have been the victims of 56 percent of these crimes.

What led to this public safety crisis? It's more than just WhatsApp.

The rise of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in India in 2014, which practices a unique brand of hard-line Hindu nationalism, has coincided with an increase in Islamophobia and a series of proposed (and some enacted) laws banning or limiting the consumption of beef, as the cow is a sacred animal in Hindu tradition.

Rajasthan and New Delhi have seen the murders of 50-year-old Mohammad Akhlaq who was killed for procuring beef, followed by Umar Mohammad, Rakbar Khan and dairy owner Pehlu Khan, all documented by Global Voices. Some of these incidents have been committed despite the victims possessing permits.

Like those mentioned earlier, these murders appear to have been sparked by online misinformation campaigns that often carry a strong Islamophobic bent. These appear to come from various sources, including state-sanctioned IT cells.

Dhruv Rathee, a vlogger from India, interviewed a former IT cell member for the right-wing BJP on how multiple pages on Facebook and numerous WhatsApp groups have spread fake news and misinformation campaigns to gain electoral leverage:

Writing for The Tribune of India, Aditi Tandon called mob lynching a “political tool” and said that law enforcement has become “part and parcel” of the attacks:

The violence we have seen over the past four years follows a trend. Mob lynching is a political tool being used to polarise society. Law enforcement has also become part and parcel of the attacks. Police officers who act fairly are transferred. The idea is to create a fear psychosis by unleashing the mobs on a certain community.

There are ongoing efforts to push back against these campaigns by de-bunking videos that have been falsely labeled or doctored. For years, fact-checking websites such as AltNews, SMHoaxSlayer, and BOOM have been verifying fake news to create awareness. BOOM found that one of the videos that triggered lynching of five men in Maharashtra's Dhule region was from Syria — a video of children who died of a nerve gas attack five years ago was being used to spread paranoia amongst the masses. While their efforts are critical, the scale of the problem well outweighs their capacity.

Many Indians say that the government and law enforcement agencies must take greater responsibility for the crisis, but this may be difficult to engineer, with the BJP in power.

In an opinion piece for Bloomberg, business writer Mihir Sharma points out that lynch mobs in India are not new — while WhatsApp has contributed to the problem, he says, it is not the source. He points instead to a lack of policing and political will:

It’s particularly odd that the government is demanding “accountability and responsibility” from a phone app when some ruling party politicians are busyspreading divisive fake news. How can the government ask WhatsApp to control mobs when those convicted of lynching Muslims have been greeted, garlanded and fed sweets by some of the most progressive and cosmopolitan members of Modi’s council of ministers?

The Supreme Court weighs in

One government branch that has spoken out on the issue is India's Supreme Court, which recently recommended the government enact new laws to prevent lynching and mob violence. The SC bench headed by justice Dipak Mishra asked the Indian parliament to deal with lynching as a special and separate offense and “a recurrent pattern of violence which cannot be allowed to become the new normal.” He said:

A special law in this field would instill a sense of fear of law amongst the people who involve themselves in such kinds of activities. There can be no trace of doubt that fear of law and veneration for the command of law constitute the foundation of a civilized society.

Following this, the Indian government on July 23 2018, has set up two panels to understand the need for a new law to prevent lynching.

The report will be submitted to Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who leads the very government that has fostered this culture of intolerance.

While Mark Zuckerberg and other technology platform founders should experiment with new ways to curb fake news and rumor-mongering on their platforms, the Indian government needs to do much more to protect public safety for all Indians. Ensuring mob justice is punished and the rule of law is enforced will save the lives of many minority communities including Muslims, Dalits, and minority tribal groups.

In India, where millions of Hindus worship cows and laws in some states prohibit their slaughter and consumption, a spate of murders of Muslims accused of smuggling cows for consumption has occurred over the last few years.

The 28-year-old Khan and his friend Aslam were targeted by an armed mob from the neighboring state of Haryana while ferrying bovines in the Alwar district. While Aslam managed to flee from the self-styled Gau Rakshaks (cow protectors), Khan succumbed to his injuries in police custody after being violently thrashed by his attackers.

President of the opposition party Indian National Congress (INC) Rahul Gandhi took to Twitter and condemned the incident, questioning the police officials on their lax approach to handling the victim despite his dire conditions:

Policemen in #Alwar took 3 hrs to get a dying Rakbar Khan, the victim of a lynch mob, to a hospital just 6 KM away.

Why?

They took a tea-break enroute.

This is Modi’s brutal “New India” where humanity is replaced with hatred and people are crushed and left to die. https://t.co/sNdzX6eVSU

With cow vigilantism on the rise and hardline Hindu nationalism taking root in India, India's Supreme Court recently asked parliament to bring in a specific law against lynching. Chief Justice of India Dipak Misra called the incidents of lynching as ‘horrendous acts of Mobocracy’.

Mobocracy against minorities on the rise in India

Many netizens are comparing Khan's case to that of Umar Mohammad, a Muslim man who was murdered in the Alwar district in a hate-filled vitriolic attack perpetrated by a Hindu vigilante who had planned his murder on religious grounds.

Twitter user Irony of India draws parallels:

“He was killed because he’s a Muslim, Modi is getting Muslims killed… They could’ve sent him to jail, beaten him up, at least they should have spared his life,” says Asmeena, widow of #RakbarKhan who was lynched on rumours of cow smuggling in #Alwar#Rajasthanpic.twitter.com/sEjlaprLKM

IndiaSpend, a data journalism website, made a crucial observation about hate crimes and persecution of Muslims in Rajasthan where the law forbids beef consumption and 88 percent of lynching victims are Muslims:

This is the 7th cattle-related hate crime reported from Rajasthan in 8 years, and the 87th incident in India. Since 2010–the start of our database on such crimes–34 persons have been killed and at least 240 injured in attacks. 56% of the attacked and 88% of victims were Muslim.

Aside from Pehlu Khan and Umar Mohammed's lynching cases, another alleged ‘cow smuggler’ named Taleem Khan was also killed in a shoot-out with police in Rajasthan in 2017.

Rajasthan, along with several other states in India have regulations prohibiting either the slaughter, sale or migration of cows for the purpose of slaughter.

However, according to reports, Rajasthan, especially the cities Alwar and Bharatpur, is one of the biggest contributors of smuggled cattle to slaughterhouses in other states where a significant population of other religions generally eat beef, including Muslims.

Cows first, Muslims last?

Between 2017 and 2018, around 44 incidents of lynchings have surfaced in India with Indian states including Rajasthan and Jharkhand reporting maximum casualties followed by Maharashtra, Uttar Pradesh, and Tamil Nadu.

Member of Parliament Shashi Tharoor says these attacks can be attributed to the rise of right-wing Hindutva ideology promoted by President Modi's government that excludes Muslims and minorities.

IndiaSpend reports that 98 percent of hate crimes have been committed after the Hindu nationalist BJP came to power in 2014, emboldening right-wing groups:

Most of these–98% of all incidents–have occurred since the BJP and Prime Minister Narendra Modi assumed power in May 2014. Only one incident each was reported in 2012 and 2013. Like Rajasthan, 56% of these incidents have occurred in BJP-run state govts. #lynching

Who killed Akbar? Mob! Alwar Police! It’s sad to know that cow protection is more sacred than saving a human life in my country. Are minorities in the country really being marginalized and treated as second grade citizen?

This has now become the predictable cycle every time a mob attack occurs against Muslims involved in the dairy business. While the victims are accused of cow smuggling, BJP leaders underplay the incident and even stand in support of mobs. Earlier this month, Union Minister Jayant Sinha was criticised by Opposition parties for garlanding eight men convicted for lynching a Muslim meat trader when they were released on bail.

The police at Alwar in Rajasthan need to be recognized for their devotion to animal welfare. When they heard that a person found with two cows was lynched, they got worried about the orphanage of the bovines.
They immediately rushed the animals to a distant animal shelter, while the victim of lynching remained at the police station, unattended for four hours and died as a result. It was devotion at its best!

In an interview with India Today, BJP leader Vinay Katiyar blamed Muslims for incidents of lynching instead of condemning the incidents:

The incident of mob lynching in Alwar is highly condemnable but people from the Muslim community should abstain from touching cows and provoke aggressive Hindus. There are a lot of Muslims who are sheltering cows but are also killing them. Cow meat is also being consumed by them.

Meanwhile, rumors of beef consumption spread by forwarded messages on Whatsapp have led to lynchings that have claimed many lives across India. In response, the government and Facebook-owned WhatsApp have reportedly blamed each other for allowing the problem to continue, though neither side has taken formal steps toward a solution.

On Monday, July 23, the government announced the development of two committees to suggest a legal framework to deal with incidents of mob violence and lynching after outrage from opposition parties and citizens.

However, until a law is promulgated to avoid persecution, many fear that minorities will continue to face the brunt of this violence.

A viral series of videos on social media show that Indian media houses may be accepting large sums of money in exchange for flattering coverage of the ruling party and Hindu nationalist ideology.

With a few exceptions, Indian mainstream media outlets have become notoriously gentle in their journalistic treatment of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) and Prime Minister Narendra Modi. So when the New Delhi High Court attempted to block news site CobraPost from publishing a cache of videos showing evidence of collusion between government and media last week, it caught people's attention.

A small media outlet known for taking risks and sometimes employing unorthodox tactics, CobraPost nevertheless went ahead and released the videos on social media.

CobraPost made the videos in a “sting” operation in which one of its journalists posed as a wealthy religious man from a monastery. He approached various mainstream media houses proposing to pay large sums of money before the elections of 2019, to ensure Modi's BJP wins the vote. Most of the publications agreed to join the crusade. Others said they were already on the job.

Some of the videos show prominent executives in media houses agreeing on camera to promote Hindutvaideology (the preferred form of Hindu nationalism of the BJP party) and describing how editorial content could be tailored through strategic public relations, all in exchange for large sums of money in the run-up to the 2019 general elections.

The videos also allege that many news organisations including Benett and Coleman Ltd (publisher of Times of India, Mirror tabloids, Economic Times, et al) had become part of a broader campaign to normalize Hindutva ideology and to polarize the country in an effort to shore up political support for the ruling party.

This campaign has coincided with numerous lynchings of Muslim men, attacks on Dalits (groups historically treated as an underclass in India's caste system) and protests against Muslims offering prayers on Fridays.

Journalist Meghnad commented on the revelations:

It's incredible how many media professionals in the #CobraPost sting were bragging about supporting and belonging to the Hindutva ideology.

How easily they said, “Yeah we're already subtly doing what you are telling us to do! So what's new? More money for this? Oh awesome!”

CobraPost used no other secondary sources to confirm that these media houses were accepting money for promoting pro-government content. But it is almost open knowledge in India that the practice takes place.

Alongside the ethical questions raised by CobraPost's methods, the videos immediately cast doubt on the editorial integrity of news organisations covering the Modi administration in India's highly polarised political environment.

Elephant in the room on #MediaForSale sting- In India. absence of institutional press freedom means Media Owners call Editorial Shots. No healthy separation – like lets say in the U.S Where Jeff Bezos cannot tell Washington Post what to run or not.

In a press release quoted by Scroll, CobraPost stated how India's leading publications are willing to “not only cause communal disharmony among the citizens but also turn the electoral outcome in favor of a particular party – and all in return for cash.”

The report has come to light amid a rapid rise of “fake news” websites in India that seem intended to promote religious and communal tension.

Major publications including the Times of India, HT Media, India Today, the Zee group, and TV18 have been named in the stinging sensation as well. But since the release of the videos, most of these outlets have stayed mum and avoided reporting on the video revelations.

Politician Yogendra Yadav questioned the coverage of CobraPost in Indian newspapers or lack thereof:

I googled “Cobrapost Operation 136″ and could not find a single mainstream print media report on it. Have I missed something?
Here's my #CobraChallenge: please post a clipping from any newspaper in any language that reports this mother of all news on Indian media.#MediaForSale

On May 31, six days after the videos went public, India Today media group filed a legal notice demanding that CobraPost remove the videos implicating India Today and claiming that their content was manipulated. A subsequent article on the Times of India website described the videos as “a case of doctoring of content and falsification, as no media organisations named in it agreed to any illegal or immoral activity and no contracts were signed.”

Several media personalities and senior journalists also expressed their views on the sting and about editorial integrity.

Prominent media personality Raju Narisetti offered insight on how this affects India's media credibility in the long run:

That bodies like Editors Guild and Press Council, the supposed self-regulators of India's media–and many of its powerful members are implicated–stay mostly silent is testimony to the fig-leaf of self regulation of media.

Indian TV anchor and journalist Rajdeep Sardesai meanwhile questioned the investigations for painting the entire country's media as compromised:

In my 3 and a half years at India Today, not once has the channel silenced my voice or told me what to say and that, in today’s times, says a lot. Equal space is given to every voice. Proof of pudding is always in eating. https://t.co/0NcpmFwmEb

Journalist Sagarika Ghosh followed Rajdeep's lead and said publications she had worked for had never pressured her to cover government agencies in a flattering light.

Bit unfair to say EVERYONE in mainstream media is up for sale/sold or prostrate before the Hindutva nationalist government. At @timesofindia I at least have never faced any interference in my writings, reports, or social media profile or my views on @ETNOWlive or @ndtvhttps://t.co/NzOJBfUwZu

It does break my heart to say this but Open Magazine should have got suspicious the moment Cobrapost reporter offered Rs 3 crore to plug Hindutva. 1) You don't have to offer Open any money anymore to plug Hindutva. 2) In any case no one offers Rs 3 crore to Open for anything.

.@cobrapost has told us what we already knew, but ignored conveniently : Most of the media houses are corrupt and can go to any length to make money. But what is the solution? Independent media, yes, but can it survive without enough revenue?

The incident also highlights the degree to which a healthy media environment requires independent streams of funding. Without this, media outlets are often left with little choice but to compromise their coverage at the behest of their benefactors.

Early in January 2018, Asifa, an 8-year-old Muslim child from the nomadic Bakarwal community in Kathua, Jammu and Kashmir in northern India, was gang-raped and murdered, as reported by Global Voices.

Much of India's local news coverage relegated the heinous story to its back pages due to its religiously-charged content. Asifa hailed from a Muslim community while her perpetrators come from a predominantly Hindu community backed by the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with sloganeering and rallies in the Jammu region.

After three months and countless struggles faced by the family, including denial to bury Asifa in her family land, political pressure, advocates in the region blocking the filing of the charge sheet and threatening Asifa's lawyer Deepika S. Rajawat, local stringer Nazir Masoodi analyzed the charge sheet filed in the case:

The charge sheet, filed by the Crime Branch of J & K [Jammu and Kashmir] police, says that the 8-year-old was not fed for the four days that she was kept captive. She was put on sedatives while she was raped by three men. The drugs ensured she would not cry out loud, not even when she was strangled.

The documents say all this happened under the watch of the temple custodian Sanji Ram. His own son, Vishal, his nephew (a juvenile) and a special police officer, Deepak Khajuria, are also accused of raping her and are among the eight men who were arrested by Crime Branch.

Masoodi's detailed report for New Delhi Television (NDTV) clearly describes Asifa's inhumane treatment. It reports on how local police conspired with perpetrators in an attempt to cover up the crime, using nationalist tactics such as joining in pro-India demonstrations in the region that borders Muslim-majority Kashmir.

While Masoodi's report raised awareness among Indians as well as Kashmiris, the news polarised communities throughout India. For example, Vishnu Nandakumar, a Kotak Mahindra Bank employee in the southern state of Kerala, India, made disparaging comments about Asifa through a Facebook post, which got him sacked amid social media outrage.

Asifa's case stirs nationalism debate in India

The narratives surrounding Asifa's disturbing crime has polarized netizens from India, Kashmir and around the world as her case has been used to fuel nationalist and religiously-charged debate.

One impassioned Twitter user implored readers to understand Asifa's rape as a hate crime against Muslims of Bakarawal:

Ashifa is not ‘just the face of a child'; she symbolises the violence her community faces. Fuck your appeal to ‘humanity’. People are more than just human faces. This was a hate crime. If you can't talk about her as a Bakarwal Muslim, don't talk about her at all.

Poet and lyricist Javed Akhtar wrote an inflammatory tweet against the Muslim Bakarwal, dismissing the community for informing the Indian army of a Pakistani intrusion during the Kargil Conflict on the border between Jammu and Kashmir and India in 1999:

Who was Asifa ? She was an eight years old daughter of Bakerwals. Who are Bakerwals ? A nomad tribe who when spotted the Kargil intruders promptly informed the army .Who are the people who are trying to protect the rapists of this little girl . ? Now it is your turn to answer.

I can understand the constant desire for elite Indian Muslims to appear nationalistic, but may I ask why it is necessary for Asifa’s community [by the way, how racist & antiquated are you to call them ‘nomad tribe'!] to be represented as snitches to receive empathy from you? https://t.co/L8PQiAYrzn

Oommen C. Curian also responded by explaining why Akhtar's argument was invalid on the grounds that a crime is a crime no matter its religious connotations or political background, referring to another religiously-motivated lynching of a Muslim man in 2015:

Deeply uncomfortable with the liberal parade of Bakarwals as ‘the watchmen’ who've served the nation. It reminds one of the sudden urge during [the] Dadri [lynching] to say that Akhlaq [a Muslim man] had mutton, not beef, in his refrigerator.

Many actors and activists from the film industry shared outraged reactions and expressed grief at the brutal gangrape, akin to the 2012 New Delhi gangrape of a medical student that triggered major protests.

Actor and comedian Vir Das wrote:

Dear politicians,

I'd like to see every one of you miserable scum and your army of slimy sycophants put your parties and your bullshit aside and do something to make sure that no child ever has to face what this girl did. But you won't. Because you don't deserve this country.

Kashmiri journalist Gowhar Geelani accused India's journalism community of spinning the narrative and reasserting the crime as religiously and politically motivated:

Attempt by Indian scribes to give a spin & portray the brutal gang-rape, kidnapping, torture & murder of the 8-year-old Muslim girl #Asifa in #Kathua by Hindu goons, backed by rightwing groups, as ‘a normal rape for lust’ is shameful. This was a rape to drive away Muslim nomads.

No one raped Ashifa. No one murdered her. No one tortured her. The innocent *Hindu* men are being targeted unfairly, and there should be a CBI probe to get justice for these innocent *Hindu* men who are being oppressed by Muslims!!

Why did India wait so long to respond to Asifa's case?

The New York Times questioned why President Modi waited so long to respond to the case in an April 16 editorial:

On Friday, Mr. Modi said that these cases had brought shame on the country and that ‘our daughters will definitely get justice.’ But his remarks ring hollow because he waited so long to talk about the cases and spoke in broad generalities — describing the crimes as ‘incidents being discussed since past two days.’ He has taken a similar approach in the past when addressing cases in which vigilante groups affiliated with his political movement have attacked and killed Muslims and Dalits — members of India’s lowest caste — who they falsely accused of killing cows, which are sacred to Hindus.

Yousuf worked as a freelance photojournalist for many local dailies including Greater Kashmir, the largest circulated daily in the valley, and MunsifTV, an English-language news channel. He was best known for his gutsy approach to covering the intensifying hostility between security forces and civilians in the Kashmir valley.

Despite campaigns from journalists and international human rights organizations including the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), Yousuf has been in jail since September 2017. Indian officials accuse him of being part of an international terrorist group that plans to wage war against Indian security forces in the Kashmir valley. He was arrested in Kashmir's Pulwama district and flown into New Delhi.

#Freelance Kashmiri photojournalist Kamran Yousuf, 23, has been in jail in #India since September. He faces a possible death sentence for his coverage of conflict in the region https://t.co/HtpwXBRotI

In their statements in front of the court, officials claim that Yousuf is not a real journalist and go on to include a definition of the role of a journalist in their charge sheet:

Had he been a real journalist/stringer by profession, he may have performed one of the moral duty of a journalist which is to cover the activities and happening (good or bad) in his jurisdiction. He had never covered any developmental activity of any Government Department/Agency, any inauguration of Hospital, School Building, Road, Bridge, statement of a political party in power or any other social/developmental activity by the state government or Govt of India.

The contradictory nature of the charges clearly shows that Kamran Yousuf is being used as a scapegoat in order to intimidate journalists who try to document the situation in #Kashmir.#FreeKamranhttps://t.co/wrctXapjti

Yousuf's charges

Yousuf was imprisoned in September 2017 but was formally charged on January 18, 2018 with criminal conspiracy, sedition and attempting to wage war against India.

Kamran has spent over 150 days in unjust NIA custody, despite South Kashmir police chief said there is no FIR or complaint registered against Kamran in any police station.#FreeKamranhttps://t.co/EwBpjH6GCU

In its charge sheet, the NIA also points out that Yousuf's failed to report on the Indian army's civic accomplishments. In their charge sheet, they accuse Yousuf of harbouring ‘intentions to only cover activities which are anti-national and earn money against such footages’.

In an attempt to discredit Yousuf as a journalist, the NIA also points to Yousuf's lack of official media training from any institute; however, his lawyer Warisha Farasat claimed Yousuf had fulfilled all the criterions listed to be a journalist.

Meanwhile, Yousuf's family is distraught by the numerous charges that have been leveled against their son including being a stone-pelter. This charge, which the family vehemently denies, carries a heavy weight in the region. Many people associate both stone pelting and the subsequent retaliation from police forces with the greater socio-political conflict affecting Kashmir.

Yousuf's family and friends refute the government's allegations and say he was an earnest freelance photojournalist who simply wanted to carve a niche through his work. Kashmiri journalists have protested against NIA's arrest and its opaque investigations, citing charges have been fabricated against Yousuf for his work covering anti-governmental protests and militant activities.

Yousuf's supporters speak out to demand justice

After Yousuf's arrest, former employer Greater Kashmir disowned Yousuf and even refused to call him a journalist — a move that many felt came as the result of government pressure. The local journalism community was quick to criticise the move and jump to Yousuf's defense. Most notably, co-worker and freelance journalist Junaid Bhat wrote on Facebook:

I'm Junaid Bhat from Sopore, North Kashmir and I was affiliated with the Kashmir's leading newspaper Greater Kashmir. I was attached as a contributor for the said organisation, now after GK disowned my colleague Kamran Yousuf, I have decided to quit the organisation. So hereby I'm informing everyone that I will no longer be part of Greater Kashmir newspaper from now.

I feel ashamed to be part of a fraternity which only protests or raise their voice when a particular set of journalists are targeted. Kamran was targeted because his photographs from the South Kashmir from the spots of violence rattled the authorities. Because it challenged their narrative. Charges of stone pelting can be leveled against anyone, but it doesn't mean that he is guilty. This seems to be another way to control media. I honestly fail to understand why is Kashmir Editor's Guild, which came into being to address exactly the same issues faced by journalists, has not called for a protest or at least issued a statement. How about Kashmir Press Photographers Association? Or have we already accepted the charges leveled against Kamran? Today it is Kamran, tomorrow it could be YOU.

We need to stand up for Kamran and if nothing more, we can at least demand to know what is the evidence against him. Taking pictures, shooting videos, being at the spot are all legitimate journalistic activities. That is no crime.

If it was the local police, we would have known whom to approach and how to deal with this. But this is the NIA, he is not even in Kashmir. Where do we go?

We would sometimes tell him not to work hard and cover every event given the situation in the valley, but he wanted to keep working. It was his passion […] he deserved to be appreciated and encouraged, not arrested and booked under false charges.

India's National Investigative Agency is way out of its league and has no business defining what ‘a real journalist’ should cover. […] Kamran Yousuf's work taking photographs of conflict in Jammu and Kashmir is a public service in the best spirit of journalism. He should be freed immediately.

The pathetic standards of journalism that NIA aims to thrust is not just childishly naive but also reflect a dangerous conspiracy to disempower the fourth estate. If [the] NIA does not understand the basics that separate PR [public relations] from journalism, it puts its own investigating capabilities into question.

]]>https://globalvoices.org/2018/02/22/indias-investigation-agency-defines-duties-of-a-journalist-after-arresting-kashmiri-photojournalist-kamran-yousuf/feed/018.5204296 73.8567429#JusticeForAsifa: A Young Girl's Murder Shocks Jammu And Kashmir Residents — But Not the National Mediahttps://globalvoices.org/2018/01/24/justiceforasifa-a-young-girls-murder-shocks-jammu-and-kashmir-residents-but-not-the-national-media/
https://globalvoices.org/2018/01/24/justiceforasifa-a-young-girls-murder-shocks-jammu-and-kashmir-residents-but-not-the-national-media/#respondWed, 24 Jan 2018 16:58:56 +0000https://globalvoices.org/?p=640070

The text on the poster says: “Delhi… Here women are scared to step out of their house. Who responsible for this intense fear?” Image by Francois Decaillet via Flickr. CC BY-NC-ND

As Pakistan grapples with bringing the perpetrators of seven-year-old Zainab Ansari's murderer to justice, another heinous killing across the border, in the northern Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir, has shocked local residents.

On January 17, the battered, lifeless body of eight-year-old Asifa Bano was found in a forest in Hiranagar area of Jammu and Kashmir's Kathua district. News reports in Kashmir's local press said Asifa appeared to have been raped and tortured before she was killed, and that there were human bite marks on her body.

Asifa Bano had been missing for a week before her body was recovered. Family members told local media that they had filed a First Information Report after she went missing, but that police were slow to investigate her disappearance. Asifa and her family belonged to the Gujjar-Bakarwal semi-nomadic tribe.

Local officials, citizens, and journalists in Jammu and Kashmir have all decried Asifa's gruesome murder and have drawn parallels with the killing of Zainab Ansari in Pakistan. There also have been public demanding justice for the child.

When one wakes up to know about the horrendous news of kidnapping, rape and killing of 8-year old Asifa Bano in Kathua. This is gruesome beyond words. Sadly this savagery has no boundaries. #JusticeforAsifa

Local resident Nadir Ali reflected on the incident and the state of society:

Soul of Jammu and Kashmir is in revolt.. 8-year-old daughter was raped and killed. Where are we heading??? Are we going backward into the future?? We all should stand together and give justice to Asifa's family.

But nationally, reactions to the incident have been sporadic, with many Indians refraining from commenting or staging protests against the heinous crime. In contrast to other senseless killings, there have been no candlelight marches or petitions for justice.

Major publications such as Zee News, Times Now and Republic, which are known for their generally supportive stance towards the government, have not reported on the incident. Such stories often become the fodder for prime time debates with trending hashtags and long editorials, especially when they happen in urban areas. But in this case, where the victim comes from a remote region in Jammu and Kashmir and belongs to a minority community, national response has been relatively muted.

On Facebook, journalist Majid Hyderi criticised local media publications that failed to cover the incident:

A local newspaper, which doesn’t report about the gruesome rape-and-murder of an eight-year-old-girl on its front page, can be appreciated as nothing but Pimp-Of-Journalism or Dalla-e-Sahafat. The tragedy of Gujjar girl, whose family isn’t resourceful enough to seek justice, gets fudged as a routine murder report on some inner page with no mention of rape.

Hyderi again made a pertinent point about the gruesome murder and rape:

We all are silent because it wasn’t our daughter or sister or maybe she wasn’t from our community or tribe; she didn’t belong to the circle of influence that could awaken our souls.

Let’s not communalize the spine-shivering tragedy as being the case of a Hindu, Muslim, Sikh or Christians; Unless we humans wake up against such crimes as one voice regardless of religious or other beliefs, someone’s daughter will continue to fell prey.

As of now, let our heads hang in collective shame. Sorry, Asifa we did nothing for you because your rape and murder don’t serve our interests!

In the Jammu and Kashmir Assembly, the opposition political party, National Conference (NC) staged a walked out protesting against the murder while the ruling party announced swift investigations. The chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir, Mehbooba Mufti, has condemned the incident and called for speedy investigations. A 15-year-old boy has been arrested by police in connection with the murder.

Outraged by the heinous incident in which a young Bakerwal girl has lost her life. Incidents like this will be investigated expeditiously & the guilty will be punished.

Crimes against women

Over the past two weeks, this incident and another killing, along with a string of ten rapes in the Haryana region have forced government and media to focus on the issue. Hundreds of women were molested by hooligans on new year's eve in 2017 which led to major protests across the country.

And India's problems with rapes and crimes against women aren't new. Since 2001, 143,795 cases of crimes against women have been reported and India has witnessed a steady annual rise of crimes against women — 337,992 in 2014. And the numbers have been alarmingly growing with more women and girls coming forward to report cases of sexual assault, molestation, and rape.

Meanwhile, in Jammu and Kashmir, many are still asking why hasn't Asifa's murder shaken India's conscience. Why has there been such limited media coverage of this crime? The rules and norms that dominate India's systems of law and governance may have a long way to go when it comes to protecting the rights and physical safety of all Indians — especially women and girls.

This year, sexual harassment and misconduct allegations rocked Hollywood and later spread worldwide with the #MeToo campaign. Many activists, women, and allies came out to address these issues all over the world, including those from the South Asian region. However, when a 17-year-old Indian actor of Kashmiri origin filed charges of sexual misconduct and molestation, many netizens supported the accused instead of the victim. In addition, the local press — and international media outlets such as the BBC — added to the damage by revealing her identity, this despite laws protecting the ‘names of victims who are minors’.

The incident occurred on 9 December 2017 as the actor was traveling on a domestic airline from New Delhi to Mumbai. She later took to Instagram to speak about the assault and was visibly shaken by the experience. She explained how a middle-aged man kept harassing her during the flight and later filed a case under section 354 of Indian Penal Code and Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act 2012.

Here's what the actor said in her Instagram post:

“The lights were dimmed, so it was even worse. It continued for another five to ten minutes and then I was sure of it. He kept nudging my shoulder and continued to move his foot up and down my back and neck. This is not done, I am disturbed… Is this how you're going to take care of girls? This is not the way anybody should be made to feel. This is terrible!. No one will help us if we don't decide to help ourselves. And this is the worst thing.”

Relevant authorities stepped in and expressed shock over the incident.

Delhi Commission of Women issues notice to Vistara Airlines on actress Zaira Wasim's allegations of a molestation attempt on Delhi-Mumbai flight, seeks report of the incident by Dec 16

Internet or media are not law-enforcement agencies. If you face an assault, report it to the police or the women commission. If you don’t get help, you can always seek public support through internet or media. Don’t use internet to hurt an innocent.#ZairaWasim

However, others took to the actor's defense and criticised the backlash she received from the online community. Here's how film director Gautam Benegal explained the entire situation in a Facebook post:

The default setting traditionally in patriarchy is to point fingers at the woman first. The French even had a term for it. “Cherchez la femme!” Look for the woman. After the advent of feminism, there has been a huge backlash from resentful patriarchy (and that includes women too since they are embedded in the system) and it has become the fashion to rail against political correctness and revert to the default.

The fact that the actor hails from the disputed region of Indian-administered Kashmir has made matters worse with many bringing politics into their criticism of her claims. Muslim-majority Kashmir is geographically divided between India and Pakistan and claimed in entirety by both. Separatist politicians, rebels, and alliances like the All Parties Hurriyat Conference reject India’s sovereignty over Kashmir and have been fighting for independence or a merger with Pakistan since 1989. Due to stereotyping of all Kashmiris by Indian nationalists as troublemakers and secessionist, many Kashmiris do not feel and have never felt, included in India and its rhetoric of democracy, secularism, and globalization.

The issue has intensified over the weeks with the actor gaining criticism from people on both sides of this political debate. Numerous activists joined in, putting forth their political viewpoints and affiliations in their commentary on the situation.

Himanshu Mohan from Bangalore tweets:

#ZairaWasim represents paranoia of Kashmir Muslims against rest of Indian citizens. The only way out Kashmiris love India and feel part of it.

Grow up Zaira bibi, for Life's sake!
Being a celebrity your tantrums take away from the everyday misogyny that women suffer everywhere and every hour and deal with them in their own ways.
Not all of us can afford FIRs or Press Conferences.
Now methinks you've been primed for some sort of agenda.
Airlines Staff are very caring of common passengers but they will not bend to kiss your toe for the simple reason they serve, they are not bought labour by your money.
An irritable passenger is ticked off always and I'm sure the staff thought Princess was having one of her usual tirades.

Debates about fake feminism and punishment for the young actor railed on:

Mumbai police cautioned netizens against targeting or condemning the young actor.

It is the Constitutional Right of every victim to report sexual abuse and it is our duty to take cognizance, investigate & facilitate justice. Kindly refrain from being judgmental and #Respect the Right of a Victim of a Sexual Assault pic.twitter.com/sb6QRx2iNI

Meanwhile, the man accused of molesting the young actor, Vikas Sachdeva, has been granted bail by a local Mumbai court and has been directed to not influence any witnesses in the case. His wife and various right-wing Indian groups have defended and supported him throughout the investigations.

My husband is innocent, had no intention to molest. There was a young death in family,which is where he went , hadn't slept for 24 hours. He asked crew to not disturb & wanted to sleep. His foot was on arm rest but not with intention to harass: Wife of accused in #ZairaWasim case pic.twitter.com/UA7WokkJfe

Disdain for rights:

Reports about the incident in Indian media broke a crucial clause of the POSCO act which mentions keeping the identity of the victim ‘protected’. However, many believed that keeping her identity hidden was impossible due to the actor's prominence and the fact that she live-streamed her accusation of assault.

Although a few news outlets maintained the victim's privacy, the damage had already been done. This was also criticised heavily by netizens.

In Zaira’s case, its her prerogative when she chooses to report the incident. So many women report issues of molestation much later after it has happened. In some cases, many years later. Maybe she simply said an okay that she didn’t mean at that moment of apology. And the apology didn’t help her feel any better later. Maybe she wasn’t convinced of his innocence on an after thought. We don’t know for sure. But, why are we putting her under a microscope and examining her true intentions, and letting the man off the hook without such similar character screening?
The backlash that the actress is facing is a classic example of why women don’t report such seemingly trivial cases of harassment in day-to-day lives. Because sadly, it has become commonplace in our society and something that we as women, are expected to simply smile and bear.

The case also mirrors a repeated pattern in patriarchial Indian society which tends to dissect a sexual abuse victim's language, dress, and occupation while giving the accused a free pass under the ‘Boys will be boys’ mentality. As in many cases all around the world, it highlights how people must prove that they are victims rather than the accused having to prove his/her innocence.

(Global Voices adheres to the highest standards when safeguarding identities of victims. Hence, we have refrained from mentioning the victim's name. However, her name is visible in social media posts, which were crucial for the story.)

The alleged perpetrator has been identified as Shambunath Raigar (38), whose speech filled with Hindu fanaticism in a number of YouTube videos. Screenshot from a video uploaded by Vir Bhoomi.

India's rising instances of attacks on minorities by Hindu supremacists hit an alarming crescendo in the first week of December, when a migrant Muslim worker was hacked and then burnt alive in Rajsamand, Rajasthan by a Hindu known to speak in fanatical terms online about his hatred against Muslims.

The victim, 50-year-old, Mohammed Afrajul, hailed from West Bengal, a state in eastern India and worked as a laborer from a very young age to support his family including three children, numerous news reports added.

Chief Minister of West Bengal State Mamata Banerjee tweeted:

We strongly condemn the heinous killing of a labourer from Bengal in Rajasthan. How can people be so inhuman. Sad

The gruesome incident was allegedly orchestrated by Shambhu Lal Raigar (38), a marble trader who believed in killing Afrajul to prevent an instance of ‘Love Jihad‘, a term used to describe Muslim boys and men who lure non-Muslim girls to convert to Islam by feigning love.

Though the term has been widely debunked, it is still commonly used by political leaders to leverage votes and divide the Hindu-Muslim community resulting in sectarian clashes.

Indian blogger Agnivo Niyogi tweeted:

Let us not forget, like Afrajul Khan, even Rizwanur was killed a decade ago for daring to love. “Honour killing” is ingrained in the north-Indian psyche. Even, Buddhadeb's police administration was complicit in the cover-up!

In gruesome online videos, Raigar's 14-year-old nephew records the entire incident on his behest while the perpetrator hacks Afrajul, pours kerosene on his body before walking off coolly. Global Voices suggests caution and trigger warnings before viewing these videos.

In the videos, Afrajul can be heard screaming for mercy as the man continues to stab him with an agricultural tool with no remorse. Afrajul had been taken to fields by the accused under the pretense of securing labor work.

Authorities said they received information about a semi-burnt body but were not able to identify the victim until the videos surfaced online and were widely viewed and shared. State police have compared the video to ones similar to the Islamic State, known for releasing grim execution videos.

The accused fanatic can be heard warning Muslims in India: “This is what will happen to you if you do ‘love jihad’ in our country.”

‘Love Jihad’ concept debunked and disputed

The recent case of Hadiya, a 24-year-old woman from the southern state of Kerala, has focused the spotlight on the alleged phenomenon of “Love Jihad,” a term constantly referred to in local media.

Hadiya's marriage and conversion to Islam reached India's Supreme court because her family said their daughter was forced to convert to Islam. Hadiya vehemently discredited these allegations and said she chose Islam voluntarily along with her marriage.

Meanwhile, Rajasthani police have refuted Raigar's claim about Afrajul committing ‘Love Jihad’ or any other illicit activities. In an article in The Indian Express, journalist Syed Hameed fears that this tragedy will quickly fade from public memory as the incendiary rhetoric has become legitimized.

Harsh Mander, a human rights activist who went on a fact-finding mission to Rajasmand expressed his shock:

Just returning from fact-finding of Afrazul's hate killing. Shaken to the soul.
So much hate felled a gentle man who dedicated his life to hard labour in distant lands to ensure a better life for his family.
Shambhu killed a complete stranger in a frenzy of hate fuelled by who?

I think every Hindu needs to raise his voice against communal division, suspicion and hate. Non-appeasement and even handed justice, which is a legitimate demand, is now clearly being twisted to cover exclusion, neglect and immoral silence. Let all Indians come together.

Mohammed Afrazul's brutal killing in Rajasthan should shame us all; if the sickening hate behind it does not disturb our conscience, nothing will. For a moment, let's forget our political differences, and think of humanity alone. Where are we headed?

India is bleeding. The time to remain silent is over. The brutal murder in Rajsamand, Rajasthan of Afrazul Islam a migrant worker from West Bengal has brought home searingly the vulnerability of minorities, especially Muslims to hate crimes being committed against them in the India of today. The murderer, Shambhu Lal Regar can be heard on the video that he got made of the killing justifying his crime in the name of so called ‘Love Jihad’, a bogey conjured up by proponents of hatred to demonize and target Muslim men in consensual love relationships with Hindu women.

Meanwhile, Facebook has been selectively blocking those condemning the attack. Qazi Zaid, an editor based out of Kashmir was blocked by Facebook for his post denouncing the murder.

Qazi Zaid, the editor of Free Press Kashmir has been blocked from posting on Facebook for vocalizing his protest against the lynching and persecution of the minority in India.

This is not new. Facebook has been blocking people who are protesting against the rampant lynching or any form of injustices. This trend of blocking and silencing of the critical voices show the legitimacy that these social media outlets are giving to the mob. The state institutions are already providing enough legitimacy to these actions. The fifth estate is also a part of the system as they are nothing but profit-making organizations.

More they block us, more vocal we will become.

Lynching Muslims in India is a truth. We are living in the times of terror and the state in India is sponsoring it. You can't block us and invisiblize the truth.

Numerous activists and groups have been protesting against Afrajul's violent murder and thousands attended his funeral. Various protests erupted across New Delhi, the nation's capital, with the hashtag #MuslimLivesMatter, a replica of #BlackLivesMatter from the United States.

Rising intolerance

Since the rise of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government in India in 2014, there has been a spike in mob-justice cases, mostly targeting minority Muslims. Rajasthan has a track record of mob-justice cases.

In April this year, Pehlu Khan, a dairy farmer accused of smuggling cattle, was killed by a mob on the national highway in Rajasthan’s Alwar district. In November, the body of dairy farmer Ummar Khan was found on the railway tracks after legally purchasing and taking cows in a pick-up truck to his village.

Meanwhile, hundreds of Muslim migrant workers from Rajsamand have fled fearing for their lives, as reported by scroll.in. Political leaders remain silent on the growing peril of lynchings across India.

Digital art of Bollywood actress Deepika Padukone, the lead actor of the movie ‘Padmavati‘, who has a US$772,500 bounty on her head by a right wing politician. Image by Raheel via Pixabay. CC0 Creative Commons.

India's culture wars and vandalization from right-wing groups have wreaked havoc one of Bollywood's most awaited movies, ‘Padmavati‘, by Indian filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali. This movie is estimated to be worth 1.9 billion Indian Rupees (29.3 million US$) and the producers of the historical saga have been forced to defer the release date owing to threats of physical assault, and an alleged bounty placed by a member of the country's Hindu nationalist ruling party seeking to behead the lead actress Deepika Padukone.

Suraj Pal Amu, a member of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) — the same party Prime Minister Narendra Modi belongs to — put a $1.5 million bounty on Deepika Padukone's head, asking followers to behead her and the movie's director Sanjay Leela Bhansali.

Other threats included chopping off Padukone's nose, burning her alive and beating up other actors in the movie. All the anger and protests are based on rumors which state the movie may show a relationship between a Hindu queen Padmavati and a Muslim ruler Allaudin Khilji, a rumor which has already been quashed by the film's production units and Padukone herself.

Actress Deepika Padukone, who is at the centre of this row over “Padmavati”, has pulled out of the Global Entrepreneurship Summit (GES), an event whose inauguration on 28 Novermber will have US President Donald Trump's daughter Ivanka and Prime Minister Narendra Modi in attendance.

Who is Padmavati?

According to common belief and widely-accepted history, Padmavati was a character in the poem called Padmavat by Malik Muhammad Jayasi. Padmavati was a Rajput queen of Chittorgarh (which is currently situated in the state of Rajasthan, in the west of India). The queen was thought to have been beautiful and the Sultan of Delhi, Alauddin Khalji had requested a meeting with her where she simply showed her reflection through mirrors. The king of Chittorgarh, Raja Ratan Singh later fought a battle with the Sultan and lost, after which Padmavati immolated herself.

Poster of the movie Padmavati. Image via Wikipedia.

The current objection to the film is taken by Shri Rajput Karni Sena, a Rajput caste group at the forefront of those who condemn the content of the movie. Their argument against the film is that Padmavati, who was considered to be a Rajput queen, would be portrayed in a bad light and that would mean deferring from the historical account of her description. Additionally, this would distort the culture and religious practices and could possibly indicate a romantic relationship between the Rajput queen and Sultan Alauddin Khalji. Ironically, after the release of the trailer of the movie, only the Rajput and the Hindu have taken to the streets to contest the release of the movie while the Rajputs in the movie have been shown as regal and royal, and Sultan Alauddin Khalji has been portrayed as somewhat barbaric in nature. If the extreme criticism is to be believed, then it should be a reflection on the overall content of the period drama and not just certain aspects of it.

The movie was due to open on December 1 but its producers postponed the release. Uttar Pradesh, Gujarat and Rajasthan states, all ruled by Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s BJP, banned it outright which was followed by protests and street revolts in the northern state of Haryana by Shri Rajput Karni Sena to get the movie banned there too. The filmmakers have provided tight security for Deepika Padukone and Sanjay Leela Bhansali, owing to concerns over these threats.

The Government of Gujarat will not allow #Padmavati – a movie hurting sentiments of Rajputs – to get released in the State. We can’t allow our history to be distorted. We believe in freedom of speech & expression but any foul play with our great culture is not tolerated.

How else can we explain this baffling situation? A film has been made about a Queen we know through an epic poem. She is, in all likelihood, entirely imaginary, yet a film that shows Freedom of expression by the artists her dancing has angered some hate groups who demand that the film be banned and those who made it be harmed. This makes no sense. Dancing is what all of Sanjay Leela Bhansali's heroines do, regardless of historical appropriateness and context, and his operatic circus-ry has been hugely successful with audiences of late. Now, however, he has ‘hurt the sentiments’ of some idiots who unforgivably assaulted him on his set and have now, sadly, imperiled his massive December release.

The issue has gone past a mere debate of freedom of expression by the filmmaker and the artists involved and now has a larger applicability since the Indian filmmaker Sanjay Leela Bhansali has faced additional criticism for his earlier movies, one of which was also a period drama. The Bollywood fraternity and friends in Hollywood openly supported the filmmaker and actors of the movie.

I am in shock at reading what my dear friend is going through but in absolute awe of her strength and courage. Deepika you are one of the strongest women I know. https://t.co/wrEaO9WZA0

On 20th, Hindi cinema’s finest will gather for the @IFFIGoa inauguration. I hope someone has the courage to bring up #Padmavati. After all, what is the point of celebrating cinema at festivals if our artists can be threatened and bullied with such impunity?

Many condemned the protests and pointed out that there were much deeper and larger issues to be highlighted. This criticism was thrown on the religious groups, political parties and the media involved in the reporting.

I truly cannot fathom how #Padmavati and the role of a queen have enraged people to such an extent as if female feticide, massive amounts of rape and child marriage are lesser issues. Take a step back from your traditions and castes and look in the mirror.

However, many filmmakers and actors find themselves at the centre of protests and are subject to threats which have increased, not only with Bollywood movies but also Marathi movies and international movies facing similar criticism, most being rejected or removed from the screening list of International Film Festival of India (IFFI). The Padmavati issue not only highlights freedom of expression, but also extreme pressure from certain sects of society and how religion, caste and emotions are considered to be brownie points by political parties even in a secular country like India.

With cow vigilantism seemingly on the rise and hardline Hindu nationalism taking root in India, hooligans calling themselves “Gau Rakshaks” (“Cow Protectors”) shot a Muslim man to death who they accused of smuggling cows.

The murder of Umar Mohammad in Rajasthan's Alwar district on November 10 was yet another instance of India's Muslim community facing targeted violence.

Several states in India have regulations prohibiting either the slaughter or sale or migration of cows. The Indian state of Rajasthan bans both cow slaughter and export or migration of bovine animal for the purpose of slaughter is also prohibited. However, according to reports, Rajasthan, especially the cities Alwar and Bharatpur, are one of the biggest contributors of smuggled cattle to slaughterhouses in different states of India.

Many Hindus consider the cow sacred and a symbol of life, and therefore do not eat it. India also has a significant population of other religions whose adherents generally do eat beef, including Muslims. In the current climate, this fact has increasingly become an excuse for communal attacks against Muslims.

‘Gau Rakshaks are a collective blot on our country, history and memory’

While the culprits have been arrested, as reported by international newswire Reuters, the ground realities remain unchanged. Since 2015, after right-wing Narendra Modi became prime minister, there has been a surge in cow vigilante violence attributed to the rise of Hindu nationalism in the country, ushered in by his election victory.

In a citizen video by online youth-focused content portal 101 India, Doctor VC interviewed some of these Gau Rakshak teams:

After talking with a leader of a Gau Rakshak team, Doctor VC comments in the video:

They held on to their religious belief (about cows) so rigidly, it made me feel uncomfortable even though I am a Hindu.

When he went to the Ramgarh police station to ask about the Gau Rakshaks, the officer in charge said that Gau Rakshaks mainly act as police informants and are not supposed to take the law in their own hands.

‘This is not something Mahatma Gandhi would approve’

In April 2017, dairy farmer Pehlu Khan was beaten to death in Alwar, Rajasthan, the violence caught on mobile phone video. The case prompted Human Rights Watch to warn the Indian government to take action against cow vigilantes:

Indian authorities should promptly investigate and prosecute self-appointed “cow protectors” who have committed brutal attacks against Muslims and Dalits over rumors that they sold, bought, or killed cows for beef, Human Rights Watch said today. Instead of taking prompt legal action against the vigilantes, many linked to extremist Hindu groups affiliated with the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), the police, too often, have filed complaints against the assault victims, their relatives, and associates under laws banning cow slaughter.

Killing people in the name of ‘gau bhakti’ (love of cow) is not acceptable. This is not something Mahatma Gandhi would approve.

But, many Indians believe the prime minister's words didn't go far enough, given what other high-profile figures have said, like the joint general secretary of the Hindu nationalist Vishwa Hindu Parishad:

If the sentiments of the majority community are respected, there would be no such incidents. Can we demand pork in any Gulf country?

A recent report by Reuters highlighted how in addition to the violence, cows have been stolen from Muslim families and redistributed to Hindu families, thereby further exacerbating the economic divide.

Nearly 86 percent of those killed in cow-related violence were Muslim

Muslims account for 14 percent of India's 1.3 billion population and were granted equal rights under India's constitution after the partition of India and Pakistan in 1947. While Pakistan became a homeland for Muslims and thereby an Islamic state, India's founding fathers including Jawaharlal Nehru and Mahatma Gandhi emphasized the country's democratic and secular credentials that guaranteed equal rights to all citizens irrespective of caste, creed or religion.

But, rising instances of nationalism fueled by abject disregard for rule of law has created a dangerous situation for minorities in India.

According to data from Indiaspend, a data journalism portal in India, nearly 86 percent of those killed in cow-related violence were Muslim and 97 percent attacks have taken place after 2014. Modi won the elections in May 2014.

Data further states that in 13 percent of the cases, police register cases against the victims. News reports suggest police officials have used the same method to highlight cases against Umar Mohammad after his death.

‘Violence has only strengthened violence…while the administration cheers on’

On June 28, 2017 thousands of people from all walks of life turned out in the streets across India to protest against the attacks on Muslims, waving placards containing messages like “Not in My Name” “Stop Cow Terrorism” and “Stand Up to Hindu Terrorism”. The protests followed the death of a 16-year-old boy accused of carrying beef on a train.

On June 28, 2017, thousands assembled in many places across India to declare that the many recent killings of Muslims were NOT IN MY NAME. Claiming to protect cows, Hindu right-wing vigilantes have been lynching Muslims. The card which this young woman is holding says, bluntly, COW PROTECTORS ARE MAN EATERS. Image from Flickr by Mukul Dube. CC BY-SA 2.0

There were also some protests following the murder of Umar Mohammad (mistakenly referred to as “Umar Khan” in the following tweet).

On Scroll.in, Ipsita Chakrabarty argued that the situation was only getting worse:

In Alwar in particular, the political acquiescence that accompanied Pehlu Khan’s lynching has emboldened murderous bullies. For instance, when activist Harsh Mander tried to take his Karwan-e-Mohabbat or Caravan of Love to Behror, the site of the lynching, they received threats from right-wing groups. When they pressed on, protesting crowds gathered at the spot as the local police claimed they were helpless to stop them. Never mind contrition, violence has only strengthened violence in Alwar, while the administration cheers on.

This is what the Hindutva radicalism has unleashed in India. And the loony Hindu Right wing will justify such nauseating murders. Shame!

In July, India's Supreme Court suspended a nationwide government ban on sale and purchase of cattle for slaughter. The ban would marginalize Muslims and the scheduled castes and tribes in the country and would harm the beef and leather industry, which employs millions of workers.

As debates around hyper-nationalism, religious zealotry, and bigotry intensify in India, it is the minorities who are facing the brunt of inhumane attacks over cow-protection, time and again.

There have been increasing instances of smog engulfing many parts of North India just before the winter in recent years. 2017, however, has seen the problem worsen dramatically. The photos below, uploaded by Twitter user @gandabherunda, illustrates how thick the smog was at the end of October.

Garbage fires and factory emissions are said to contribute to the problem, too. This augured by low wind speeds and low temperatures make the problem worse and are having a negative impact on residents’ health.

According to the UK newspaper the Guardian, doctors in New Delhi have claimed half their patients suffering from lung cancer are non-smokers. Arvind Kumar, a lung surgeon at the medical facility told the Guardian:

In the last two years, half my lung cancer patients have been non-smokers. I am seeing a peak in people aged in their 40s, even people in their 30s. Our cancers are occurring earlier, more in non-smokers, and more in females.”

The World Health Organization meanwhile has named Delhi the world's most polluted mega-city, beating Cairo, Mumbai, and Kolkata. And according to international medical journal, Lancet, air pollution has claimed as many as 2.5 million Indian people in 2015.

Many citizens have taken to Twitter to express their disdain. The #SmogInDelhi hashtag was trending for a while. Journalist Annie Gowen wrote:

Is “bad weather” some kind of euphemism for “Punjab and Haryana farmers illegally burning acres of paddy stubble and endangering millions across northern India and Lahore, Pakistan”? https://t.co/FUCBV80e7W

Journalist Aman Sharma expressed concern over the perceived lack of action to solve the problem:

Feeling sick to the core due to this smoke & smog though I was not out much. No one doing anything about it. UP, Punjab, Haryana all not bothered. Delhi CM trying but alone can't do much. This too, shall pass – seems everyone's solution to this!

Many have complained about Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his government's silence over the smog issue:

So far we have seen zero sense of emergency from Central Govt when it comes to capital’s killer pollution. Emergency meetings should be called & action taken on a war footing. Environment Minister @drharshvardhan should cancel his visit to Germany and come back to India soonest

Headlines even in the international press have been telling for years that India has the worst air quality in the world. The planet’s most polluted cities are concentrated in this country. You’d think prime minister Narendra Modi would at least want to be seen as doing something about this, if not actually doing something. He hasn’t said a word.

‘No one is doing anything about it’

Journalist Mayank Austen Soofi, in his photo blog, chronicled the catastrophic Delhi smog. You can check the blog here. A comment under the blog reads:

I have been coughing for over a month, and it is only a week or so back, that I realised that it’s because of the pollution. It’s terrible. It can be brought down, but no one is doing anything about it.

While Anuradha Sengupta urged on Facebook for people who are able to take more personal responsibility in their consumption habits:

Don't understand this – helpless many? Give up the car (or do not buy multiple cars), stop so much consumption, shut down factories. … but most people do not want to make changes to their lifestyle. The people who are lowest down the ladder, who have to live (and work) in the open on the roads – they are suffering the most. And of course, the creatures who are not humans – who are probably dying by the droves without being accounted for.

For some like daily laborers and rickshaw drivers, smog is a daily problem affecting their health:

The Delhi government has decided to reintroduce the Odd-Even nameplate traffic rule from 8 am to 8 pm in the national capital from November 13-17. Under this rule, private vehicles are allowed to run based on the last number of their license plates. The system was first implemented in Beijing in 2008 just before the summer Olympics and was tried in 2015 and 2016 in Delhi.

According to Shivam VJ, this may not be the answer as “the main cause of pollution is road dust and farm fires, but even within vehicular pollution, it is trucks and two-wheelers.”